When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

In all likelihood, it was a mega-mansion, but Dante was a man with endless testosterone. I had no doubt he would turn into his basest self before too long when confined as he would be between four walls.

I was not relishing my interactions with him.

Almost as much as I was not looking forward to my appointment with Dr. Taylor.

“Elena?” the doctor herself said kindly as she opened the door to the luxuriously appointment room where I sat in a thin cashmere hospital gown on the exam table. “How are we today?”

“Anxious,” I admitted, though nothing in my straight posture or carefully clasped hands denoted the riot of nerves ricocheting in my belly. “I feel as though I’ve been waiting forever to know what’s wrong with me.”

Dr. Taylor’s severe face, Slavic and big-boned, gentled into a genuine smile as she sat on her wheelie stool and opened my medical file. “That’s very normal, I assure you. So let me get right to it then. I have good news. What you have is a combination of various abnormalities that have made fertility and orgasm achievement difficult for you. A decade ago, we wouldn’t have even noticed these collections of issues, let alone known how to treat them. In this day and age, though, with our advanced technology and surgical practices, I believe we can fix your primary anorgasmia and greatly improve your chances of conceiving a child one day.”

I blinked as my chest compressed painfully, and heat pricked the backs of my eyes. My breath wouldn’t move through my body, my lips wouldn’t form the words I wanted to say, probably because, in my shocked relief, I didn’t even know which ones to speak.

Thank God.

I can’t believe it.

Are you sure? Please, don’t let this be another cruel joke.

I can be fixed?

Instead, I sat there mutely, convulsively swallowing past the lump in my throat as I stared down at my clasped hands.

It was silly, really, that I should feel so emotional over potentially gaining the ability to orgasm after a lifetime of sex without true pleasure. Lord knew, sex wasn’t everything. It was hardly and probably understandably, given my affliction and history, a blip on my radar.

But it represented so much more.

Living as a woman who couldn’t orgasm with significant fertility issues in part because of an ectopic pregnancy five years ago was psychologically crippling.

Even though I’d eschewed my Italian culture for years, it was still pervasive enough to leave a lingering sense of shame that I couldn’t fulfill the Italian ideal of a woman: get married, give birth to an endless stream of children to satisfy the pope or the mafia, whichever religion my people subscribed to, and raise them in that faith.

Then there was the simple and crushing fact that my fiancé had left me for another woman after having a kinky, fucked-up affair with her for weeks behind my back. This was made even more excruciating by the fact that they’d recently brought a baby into the world.

A little girl.

I’d overheard Cosima talking on the phone to Giselle one morning, and apparently, little Genevieve even had Daniel’s beautiful blue eyes.

Pain lanced through me every time I thought about Daniel’s new family, spearing straight into my spine so that I felt I might break clean in two.

Given all of that, I decided to allow myself the agony of relief searing through me and the wet it brought to my eyes.

Dr. Taylor wheeled forward to place a hand on my knee and smile at me tenderly. “I don’t think I ever thought I’d see you so moved.”

I laughed, a choked-off, ugly sound. “Great bedside manner, Monica.”

She laughed too. “I do my best for my friends. Do you need a moment?”

“No, no.” I rolled my shoulders back and fixed her with my cool stare. “Run me through the procedure and let me look at my calendar, let’s get this booked in.”

“There are risks,” she warned. “You have endometriosis and significant fibroids. We’re talking about two procedures done simultaneously.”

A bitter coughing chuckle erupted from my lips. “Of course there are, and knowing my luck, I should know the worst-case outcome. But honestly, Monica, this is the best news I’ve had in so long…” I swallowed the unexpected surge of a sob rising in my throat and powered through. “It’s just good to know there’s a chance.”

“You’d have to continue with your therapy,” she reminded me. “There are mental obstacles to these kinds of issues as well, and Dr. Madsen seems to think it’s helping.”

I thought therapy was a waste of my valuable time, and I didn’t particularly like Dr. Madsen, but I only nodded, too relieved to put up my usual fight.

Monica smiled at me, a rich expression of joy that mimicked the feeling ballooning in my belly. “At the end of this, Elena, you’ll know carnal pleasure, and one day, I hope you’ll know the joy of being a mother. You might need additional hormone therapy to conceive because I’m worried about your estrogen levels, but natural conception should be a very real possibility.”